Monthly Archives: June 2014

I have a varsity letter for cheerleading. I dead-lifted 155 lbs for time at CrossFit. I own really nice running shoes. And I’ve watched two whole seasons of So You Think You Can Dance. So how hard can it be to wiggle around to some music? So hard that today, I came to the realization that I will never, ever, even remotely, be considered cool. Hell, cool probably isn’t even cool anymore. Now it’s sick. Or maybe sick was yesterday’s term. I’ll tell you what’s really sick. Sick is that Zumba crap. And I don’t mean sick like cool. I mean sick like you’d have to be out of your ever loving mind to want to try that stuff once you’ve hit the back side of forty.

Back to my demise of cool. It started when I would joke with a young waitress and she would fake laugh like I was witty and scurry off to get me another diet Coke. I figured she just didn’t get the joke, right? Then, one day I made a clever comment to a few college age kids at a gas station. I honestly think I saw one of them roll their eyes. Seriously? I am cool. I do not look my age. I can still do the splits. I’ve even got rap music with explicit lyrics in my iTunes. But today was the final epiphany. Today, sobbing in the parking lot of the community center, it finally hit me: I am my mother’s age. I will never be cool again. I am old.

What brought me to this stark realization? Zumba. Actually, it wasn’t even Zumba, because this class doesn’t bother with the licensing fees. It was “dance fitness.” I got my ass handed to me by something called dance fitness. Oh, I hear you, sister. It took you two months before you could get all of the choreography. I’m catching your drift; it was the hardest thing to figure out that body roll. But here’s the thing: I didn’t leave dance fitness six minutes into the class because I felt like I couldn’t physically handle the grueling arm movements. No, this class gave me a mental beat down.

I would describe to you in length the intricate series of kicks and flicks and popping and locking that was going on all around me in dance fitness, but it would only underline my ever loosening grasp on the modern world. This body roll thingy? Honey, rolls go on a plate. If a roll is going to be a part of my body, it’s going to be from the inside out in the form of cellulite. My body rolls hang over the top of my pants. They peek out from beneath the backside of my bra strap. They are not part of any sort of rhythmic or graceful movement. And this pelvic thrust action with coordinating arm movements? Listen, I’ve got two kids, and a stork didn’t leave them on my door-step. I have been privy to some pelvic thrusting in my day. But not in front of a giant mirror and six other spandex clad thrusters. It’s awkward when I’m watching TV with my kids and the dance to Greased Lightning from Grease comes on. Do you really think I’m going to jerk my baby maker back and forth with clenched fists at my side in front of God and everybody? I don’t think so.

I went to the Zumba website, just to take a look. Maybe I was looking for a chat room where I could find some sort of support group for Zumba drop outs. You know what I found? They had the nerve to describe their “fitness-parties” as “easy to follow.” Well, turn out the lights, that party is over. Maybe I should have dipped into the kids’ ADHD meds before I went, because I was totally lost. Better yet, maybe I should have brought some for the instructor because as soon as I would get one part of my body moving the same way hers was, she would totally change what she was doing! It would be like asking your grandmother to climb Mt. Everest and just about the time she’s making it to the top you yell, “Never mind, Grandma, we’re going to climb this mountain over here instead!”

So if you’re wondering where you’ll find me in the morning, it won’t be at dance fitness. I’ll be somewhere totally uncool like drinking coffee and talking about the weather, or at the Piggly Wiggly buying some Activia. This old broad won’t be shaking her way into shape. Sign me up for Silver Sneakers. I’ll go sit on a folding chair and do arm curls with 12 ounce cans of vegetable soup.

Far be it from me to gripe about anything, but as long as we’re talking about how hot it is outside, let me just tell you how hot it really is. My trusty Camry has been in the shop for several days now, and I’m fortunate enough that my parents are letting me borrow the “farm truck.” The farm truck is a navy blue 1990 Isuzu Rodeo that my sister bought when she was in law school many, many moons ago. When she became an adult and got a real car, the Rodeo went to where vehicles go to die; our family farm. Flash forward about twenty years and five billion degrees and here you have me, driving the farm truck around town, with no air conditioning.

Now if you happen to be reading this above the Mason-Dixon Line and think you know what hot is; you don’t. Hot is walking around barefoot on fresh, black asphalt holding a large piece of metal on a highway that runs directly on the invisible line of the equator. Now add six gallons of boiling split-pea soup to account for the humidity. Take all of that, shove it in a pint size Ziploc bag and throw it in the microwave for sixty seconds. Now you have what it feels like in Alabama on any given day in June around 9:30 a.m. Take the bag out of the microwave and immediately open it with your bare hands, and you’ll have what it feels like by 9:45 a.m.

Anyway, when I dropped my Camry off at the mechanic’s shop and picked up the farm truck, I was just happy to have something to drive. The kids were in the back, we had the windows rolled down and I was raising my hands and bouncing up and down, “No air. Don’t care.” Let me tell you, that didn’t last long enough for my boys to finish rolling their eyes.
Imagine a metal box filled with coal.
Now imagine it on wheels.
Now imagine that it is on fire.
Now drive it.
Mother of all things holy, the only thing less ventilated than a 1990 Isuzu Rodeo is a gas chamber.

Ever the optimist, I decided to make driving the rolling convection oven fun. And what screams fun more than a sing-a-long!?! So if you happen to pass me on the road and I’m actually still lucid enough to maintain brain function, I will be singing my own version of the sort-of hit song, No Air, by American Idol winner, Jordan Sparks, and World Welterweight Champion, Chris Brown. If you’d like to sing along with me, you may find the karaoke version of the song here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ESPjnsWJQY and my personalized lyrics below:

“No Air”

Tell me how I’m supposed to drive with no air

If my car stays in the shop
I’ll get so hot that I may drop
It’s nice to have something to drive around but damn
Oh

My hair looks like it is half wet
Shirt is stained with under-boob sweat
Wish there was a way that I could turn on a fan

But how do you expect me
to drive around stuck to the seat
‘Cause my world revolves around air
It’s so hard for me to breathe

[Chorus:]
Tell me how I’m supposed to drive with no air
Can’t smile, can’t live with no air
Can’t wear makeup when there isn’t air
It’s no air, no air
Got me out here in humidity
Tell me how I’m gonna be lookin’ pretty
If there ain’t air, I just can’t be
It’s no air, no air

No air, air
No air, air
No air, air
No air, air

I walked, I ran, I jumped, I swam
Tried to forget the heat but damn
The South’s hotter than hell in mid-July

But somehow I’m still holding the wheel
Foot on the gas, burning my heel
Praying for wind, that will keep me alive

So how do you expect me
to drive around in this heat
‘Cause my real car is broken down
I’m stuck driving this big heap

[Chorus]

No air, air
No air, air
No air, air
No air, air
No more
It’s no air, no air

[Chorus]

No air, air
No air, air
No air, air
No air, air

Tell me how I’m supposed to drive with no air
Can’t eat, can’t sleep with no air
It’s how I feel whenever there’s no air
It’s no air, no air

Got me out here in the Rodeo
In the shade it’s one hundred and fo’
If there ain’t air, I can’t even go
It’s no air, no air

No air, air
No air, air
No air, air
No air

It may not be swanky, but it gets the job done. Unless the job is staying cool.